Welcome to the

AI Incident Database

May 11 (Reuters) - The family of a man killed in ​a 2025 mass shooting at Florida State University has filed a lawsuit against OpenAI in a U.S. ‌court, claiming the shooter was aided by ChatGPT in planning the attack.

The family of Tiru Chabba filed the lawsuit on Sunday in Florida federal court against the company and the man charged in the shooting, Phoenix Ikner. It is at least the second lawsuit filed in the U.S. accusing ​OpenAI of facilitating a mass shooting.

The lawsuit claims ChatGPT served as a co-conspirator in the shooting, because Ikner ​planned and carried it out using information provided by ChatGPT in conversations in the preceding months. Despite conversations ⁠about mass shootings, the lethality of Ikner's weapons and when the FSU student union was busiest, the chatbot did not ​flag or escalate the conversations, the lawsuit claims.

The lawsuit, which seeks compensatory and punitive damages, accuses OpenAI of designing a ​defective product and failing to warn the public about its risks.

"Last year's mass shooting at Florida State University was a tragedy, but ChatGPT is not responsible for this terrible crime," OpenAI spokesperson Drew Pusateri said in a statement.

"In this case, ChatGPT provided factual responses to questions ​with information that could be found broadly across public sources on the internet, and it did not encourage or promote ​illegal or harmful activity."

Pusateri said the company identified an account believed to be associated with the suspect after the shooting and proactively shared ‌it ⁠with law enforcement. The company continues to cooperate with law enforcement and is continuously working to improve detection of harmful intent, he said.

Ikner, a deputy sheriff's son, killed two people and wounded four others at the school in Tallahassee, Florida, before he was shot by officers and hospitalized, authorities said. He faces two counts of first-degree murder and seven counts of attempted first-degree ​murder, according to court records.

A lawyer ​for Ikner did not ⁠immediately respond to a request for comment.

Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier announced in April that he was launching a criminal investigation into ChatGPT's role in the FSU shooting after prosecutors ​reviewed the chat logs between Ikner and the program.

OpenAI has said it trains its models ​to refuse requests ⁠that could "meaningfully enable violence," and notifies law enforcement when conversations suggest "an imminent and credible risk of harm to others," with mental health experts helping assess borderline cases.

AI companies are facing a growing wave of lawsuits accusing them of failing to prevent chatbot interactions ⁠that plaintiffs ​say contribute to self-harm, mental illness and violence.

Last month, family members of ​victims of one of Canada'sdeadliest mass shootings filed a group of lawsuits against OpenAI and CEO Sam Altman, alleging the company knew eight months before the attack ​that the shooter was planning it on ChatGPT but did not warn police.

Three pupils were injured in a stabbing incident at Vähäjärvi School in Tampere's Pirkkala region on Tuesday morning.

Local police were alerted to reports of a violent incident at the school at 10.42am. The suspected perpetrator, who police confirmed is a pupil of the school, was taken into custody about eight minutes later.

According to the information available on Tuesday evening, the victims' injuries are not thought to be life-threatening.

Yle understands that one victim was stabbed in the neck, another in the hand, and a third in the waist. This information has not yet been officially confirmed.

Police probe suspect's alleged manifesto

There have been widespread reports that the suspect, who Yle understands is a 16-year-old boy, published a manifesto saying he planned to use a knife in the attack and that his intended targets would be female pupils.

According to the manifesto, he wanted to do something "significant" and "exciting", with the stated aim of going to prison for two to four years.

The manifesto also claims he had no friends and did not want any. He reportedly planned the act for about six months, allegedly using ChatGPT as an aid.

Yle has seen the manifesto but has not been able to verify that it was written by the suspect. Police are examining the material allegedly published by the suspect as part of their investigation.

Police: All three victims aged under 15

Detective Inspector Jari Kinnunen told a press conference on Tuesday evening that the three girls injured in the incident were all aged under 15 years old.

Kinnunen added that police are currently investigating the incident under the charge of attempted murder, although this may change as the investigation progresses. He also said that an interview with the suspect was due to take place around the same time as the press conference was being held.

He further addressed reports of the suspect's alleged manifesto as well as videos circulating on social media apparently showing the attack, saying the police have not yet been able to confirm the veracity of either.

Detective Inspector Petri Kollanen confirmed to the same press conference that the suspect was identified and detained within minutes of the report to police, and he offered no resistance when approached by officers.

Police were unwilling to comment on the seriousness of the injuries to the victims. They also declined to speculate on the suspect's possible motives.

Students at the school as well as their families have been offered crisis support, a spokesperson for the Pirkanmaa regional welfare authority told the press conference. The authority will also distribute information to families on how to discuss the events with their children at home.

"Unequivocally condemnable"

Government ministers widely condemned the school stabbing.

Education Minister Anders Adlercreutz (SPP) took to messaging platform X to say, "all violence in schools is unequivocally condemnable."

Social Security Minister Sanni Grahn-Laasonen (NCP), also posting on X, drew attention to the importance of children now having adults they can talk to.

Interior Minsiter Mari Rantanen (Finns) meanwhile described the incident as "extremely worrying," adding that the authorities will investigate when can be done to prevent young people from carrying knives.

"I think it is also the responsibility of parents to ensure that their children do not carry knives with them," Rantanen said.

ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) --- The suspect in the killings of two University of South Florida doctoral students from Bangladesh had asked ChatGPT what would happen if a human body was put in a garbage bag and thrown in a dumpster, days before they went missing, according to a report filed by prosecutors over the weekend.

Hisham Abugharbieh, 26, also asked the artificial intelligence chatbot whether the vehicle identification number on his car could be changed and whether he could keep a gun at home without a license, according to the pretrial detention report filed Saturday. ChatGPT responded that Abugharbieh's question sounded dangerous, according to the report.

An investigation that the office of Florida's attorney general launched last week over whether ChatGPT offered advice to a gunman who killed two people last year at Florida State University will be expanded to include the killings of the USF students, Attorney General James Uthmeier said Monday on social media.

The remains of Abugharbieh's roommate, Zamil Limon, were found on the Howard Frankland bridge Friday morning, but Hillsborough County Chief Deputy Joseph Maurer said later that day that they were still searching for Limon's girlfriend, Nahida Bristy. On Sunday, the sheriff's office announced that a body had been found in a waterway near the bridge but had not been identified.

Abugharbieh, was charged with two counts of premeditated murder in the first degree with a weapon in the deaths of Limon and Bristy, the sheriff's office announced Saturday. The former USF student was ordered held without bond. A hearing is set for Tuesday.

Limon and Bristy, both 27, were considering getting married, a relative said. They disappeared April 16. Limon was last seen at the off-campus apartment complex where he lived with Abugharbieh, and Bristy at a campus science building.

Limon was studying geography, environmental science and policy, and Bristy was studying chemical engineering. She was a graduate of Noakhali Science and Technology University. The school said in a statement Saturday that she was a Ph.D. candidate and described her as a talented and promising student.

A friend contacted police April 17 about being unable to reach both Bristy and Limon, despite repeated attempts by phone, according to the report. Police investigators searched Bristy's campus office the next day and found her purse, lunchbox, MacBook and iPad.

At Limon's off-campus apartment, detectives questioned Limon's two roommates and noticed that Abugharbieh's left pinky finger was bandaged. When confronted by detectives, Abugharbieh denied any involvement with Limon's disappearance.

The third roommate told detectives that Abugharbieh had used a cart overnight on April 16 and April 17 to move cardboard boxes from his room to the trash compactor. In the trash compactor, detectives found Limon's wallet and campus ID badge, credit card, eyeglasses and clothes that appeared to have blood on them.

Detectives found blood leading from the kitchen to Abugharbieh's bedroom and more blood in his bedroom. In Limon's bedroom, they found Bristy's campus ID and credit cards, suggesting she had been at the apartment before she disappeared, according to the report.

Using cellphone location and license plate reader data, detectives concluded that Abugharbieh's car and Limon's phone had both been on the bridge and on Clearwater Beach, the report said. Based on location data from Abugharbieh's phone, detectives searched around the bridge and found a trash bag containing Limon's body. The medical examiner concluded that Limon had numerous stab wounds.

Three days after Limon and Bristy's April 16 disappearance, Abugharbieh asked Chat GPT, "Has there been someone who survived a sniper bullet to the head" and "will my neighbors hear my gun," according to the report. He also asked the chatbot four days after that, on April 23, "What does missing endangered adult mean."

Abugharbieh, a native-born U.S. citizen, was initially arrested Friday at his family's home on preliminary charges that include unlawfully moving a dead body, failure to report a death, tampering with evidence, false imprisonment and battery. Reached by email on Monday, Jennifer Spradley, an attorney in the public defender's office in Tampa, said the office wouldn't comment on Abugharbieh's case.

Officers encountered Abugharbieh as they responded to a report of domestic violence at his family's home, just north of the campus, and were able to move his relatives to safety. But then he barricaded himself inside and refused to come out. A SWAT team responded --- along with a drone, a robot and crisis negotiators --- before Abugharbieh came out with his hands up, apparently wearing nothing but a blue towel.

Abugharbieh had been a USF student but was not currently enrolled. University records showed he had attended the school from spring 2021 through spring 2023 and had pursued a BS in management, a university spokesperson said.

Researchers tracked a large AI‑themed investment scam campaign involving more than 15,000 domains. It uses cloaking and deepfakes to hide from security tools while targeting ordinary users.

Criminals abused the Keitaro ad-tracking platform as part of a cloaking system so real victims see scam content, while security scanners, ad reviewers, and some random visitors see harmless pages, making the operation hard to detect and shut down.

Keitaro is a commercial tracking platform originally meant for digital marketers to manage ad campaigns, test which ads work best, and route visitors to different landing pages.

Because it is feature rich, easy to spin up on regular hosting, and built to filter and route traffic, criminals found they can abuse those capabilities to run scams at scale.

Traffic starts in many places. The scammers used compromised websites, spam emails, social media posts, and online ads, all quietly routing through the same tracking infrastructure.

The scam sites typically promise "Smart AI Trading Technology" or "Intelligent Trading Solutions" and claim consistently high returns, often reinforced with deepfake images or fabricated media to look more credible.

Some parts of the campaign now use deepfake videos and fake interviews with well-known public figures, making it look like a celebrity, or finance expert personally endorses the platform.

Once you follow a link, the cloaking part of the operation kicks in. Cloaking is the trick that makes these scams so hard to see from the outside.

When you click an ad or link, your visit passes through a traffic distribution system (TDS), a kind of router for web visitors that decides which page you see. In these cases, the TDS is connected to the tracker.

The system checks things like:

• Your country/region
• Your device and browser
• Where you came from (Facebook ad, Google ad, email link, etc.)
• Sometimes your IP address reputation or other subtle fingerprints

You're shown the real investment scam landing page only if you match the "ideal victim" profile (for example, a regular consumer in a target country coming from a social media ad).

Everyone else, like a security researcher, ad platform reviewer, or automated scanner, gets shown a benign page, like a generic blog or placeholder site.

How to stay safe

The best way to stay safe is to stay informed about the tricks scammers use. Learn to spot the red flags that almost always give away scams and phishing emails, and remember:

• There is no such thing as a risk-free, consistently profitable investment. If you're looking to invest, navigate directly to known, regulated financial institutions.
• Deepfakes are very convincing nowadays, so you will hardly be able to tell the difference between the real celebrity and their deepfake persona.
• Don't act upon unsolicited investment advice, whether it reaches you by email, social media, or sponsored search results.
• Use an up-to-date, real-time anti-malware solution with a web protection component or a reputable tracking and ad-blocker.
• Don't act on impulse or under time pressure. Always properly research where your money will be going.

Pro tip: Malwarebytes Scam Guard can help you recognize and analyze scams.

Police in Guelph, Ont., are reminding people to be wary of celebrity endorsements of financial investments after a woman in the city lost thousands.

Police say a woman clicked on a social media ad that appeared to be popular YouTube content creator Mr. Beast promoting an investment opportunity. Mr. Beast is known for wild challenges where he'll give the winners large amounts of money.

The woman initially paid $250 to join the investment, then handed over more money as the scam continued.

At one point, she thought she spoke to Mr. Beast on the phone who encouraged her to put $5,000 in a cryptocurrency wallet address he provided.

In total, police say she lost $14,000.

"Residents are encouraged to be wary of any telephone call, email or text which requires you to take immediate action and to be suspicious of any supposed celebrity endorsement which can be easily faked with artificial intelligence," police said.

Mr. Beast, whose real name is Jimmy Donaldson, has addressed the deep fake AI ads using his likeness. In a post on X, formerly Twitter, in Oct. 2023 he called it "a serious problem" after an AI-generated video showed him offering to give people the newest iPhone if they sent him $2.

Anyone who believes they've been a victim of this or a similar cyber fraud should contact police and the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre.